


Caïssa

by IllegalCerebral



Series: CM Bingo 2021 [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Chess, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father Figure Jason Gideon, Friendship, Mentions of Jason Gideon - Freeform, Parent Death Mention (brief), Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid Friendship, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Worried Penelope Garcia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllegalCerebral/pseuds/IllegalCerebral
Summary: “Show me how you play.”The request was unusual not just because it’s delivery was so abrupt - Spencer had been so deep in thought that he jumped at the sound of Penelope’s voice - but because after he had ascertained she wasn’t joking he couldn’t work out what her motivation was. When he asked why she was suddenly so interested in chess, Penelope’s eyes narrowed.Sometimes a friend needs help but in a way where they won't notice it's being offered.
Relationships: Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid
Series: CM Bingo 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134338
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: Genuary 2021





	Caïssa

**Author's Note:**

> **I don't give permission for this work to be copied and posted elsewhere without my permission. If you see this story anywhere other than here or my tumblr it has been STOLEN**

“Show me how you play.”

The request was unusual not just because it’s delivery was so abrupt - Spencer had been so deep in thought that he jumped at the sound of Penelope’s voice - but because after he had ascertained she wasn’t joking he couldn’t work out what her motivation was. When he asked why she was suddenly so interested in chess, Penelope’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh I see. It’s a smart person thing so why would I be interested in it?”

“What!? No, not at all, that’s not what I mean. I never said that!”

Penelope raised her eyebrows, in a silent “so what’s the issue then?” and Spencer decided that it might be best not to probe any deeper and instead reset the board.

With a little hesitation he took her through all the pieces and how they moved across the board. Spencer was a little perturbed by the fact that every time he looked up to check Penelope was following him she was in fact studying his face and then looking away before their eyes could meet. 

Despite this Penelope nodded along with his instructions and sometime repeated them under her breath. A small suspicion began to form that she was trying to sell her interest in his chess lesson but before he could interrogate it further Penelope asked question.

Then she asked another and another and before Spencer knew it their lunch break was over and Penelope was bounding towards the bat cave before he could register her leaving her chair.

“Okay boy wonder, same time tomorrow?” Spencer thought he said yes but he couldn’t be sure, his brain was struggling process the whole thing. He hadn’t even eaten his tuna sandwich and chocolate doughnut. 

Spencer figured Penelope would forget so he was surprised when she was waiting for him at the lunch table, fingers steepled and with a steely look of determination about her. Spencer knew better than to ask if she was sure she wanted to play with him and silently set up the board.

“I bought chess cookies,” she announced proudly and a Tupperware full of wonky chequerboard cookies appeared from her bag. They looked a little burnt too but Spencer graciously took one and nibbled a corner. It wasn’t too bad and he had two more as he set up the board and gave Penelope a quick recap of the pieces.

Spencer played as white and explained his motivations for his opening move. He held off explaining different gambits and their histories, he could see Penelope rolling her eyes. In truth the wariness from the previous day was still there. There was no hint as to what had driven Penelope to ask him to teach her play chess and the uncertainty unsettled Spencer. He was waiting to the punchline or the a-ha moment where it all clicked into place. Spencer steeled himself for the inevitable moment when he would fix his face into a tight smile and laugh off whatever joke was being made.

But it never came. For a week straight the pair of them would set up the board at the start of their lunch break and play a few stumbling rounds of chess with Spencer cutting in to point out various strategies and tactics. Penelope would nod along and then ask questions. It always felt like as soon as the game was picking up speed they had to get back to work.

Then of course the team got called away on a case. 

“You there are like a bajillion chess website right genius?” Penelope had phoned him up as they were checking in the little motel where they would be staying. “I can set us up a couple of accounts.”

“I don’t think we’ll have time,” Spencer chewed his lip. It wasn’t a time sensitive case. They had profiled he liked to leave a lot fo time between kills, at least a year and since the last victim had been found a week ago the team would be able to methodically through the evidence with ample time for reflection and breaks to prevent them being overwhelmed. “Sorry”

He didn’t mention the fact that he always played chess with Gideon on cases. Or used to. Whenever a case got hard on he couldn’t clear his head he would produce a board and the pair of them would sit down working through various chess problems. It was a sort of ritual and new, barely twelve months after Gideon’s departure it didn’t feel right to do something similar with anyone else.

Morgan was looking at him from across the lobby as he grabbed his room key and scurried up the stairs. Before disappearing round the corner Spencer saw him pull his phone out, an exasperated look on his face. There was an impulse to pause, Spencer felt oddly connected to the gesture but the guilt from lying to Penelope was too much.

Morgan was on the phone again to Penelope the next morning, having arrived at the local station earlier than the rest of the team to get a head start on the files from the four previous murders. Hotch and Rossi were deep in conversation with the local police chief and Emily and JJ were setting up an evidence board. None of them noticed Spencer slip away to the adjacent room. Ostensibly he was going to see what Morgan had found and definitely not eavesdrop.

“I get it baby girl, I do,” Morgan sighed, “but are you sure this is the best way?…I’m not talking about pretty boy, I mean for you. Aren’t you worried you’re making yourself…” Morgan trailed off, making a sweeping gesture with one hand, grasping for a word that Spencer suspected he hoped wouldn’t insult Penelope. Morgan’s shoulders slumped. “Look we’ll talk more when we get back. In the meantime can you chase down those names I gave you?…You are the brightest star baby girl.”

“Why’re you sneaking around?” Emily’s voice was a whisper but it still made Spencer jump. She leaned in eagerly, chin practically resting on Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer was amazed she had been able to walk up behind him so silently.

“I am not sneaking, you’re the one sneaking. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he spluttered, earning him a raised eyebrow in response. Emily didn’t say anything though as she followed Spencer in to hear what Morgan had found. If he picked up on Spencer’s sullenness or Emily’s curiosity Morgan didn’t mention it. Instead he mentioned that the four victims all had work done on their homes a year before their deaths and that they shared a couple of contractors. 

Within an hour Penelope had gotten back to the with the life stories of three men. Two of them were unremarkable and law abiding but the third was a good candidate for their unsub and Hotch dispatched Morgan and Spencer to his place of work while he and Emily took his house.

The drive over was completely silent as Spencer stared out the window, turning over Morgan’s conversation with Penelope in his mind and trying to fill the blanks. His gut told him that Morgan thought chess was a waste of time and that whatever Penelope was trying to do by playing with Spencer wasn’t worth it. That of course begged the question what was Penelope trying to do?

Interviewing the suspect’s co-workers to find out that he had skipped work that day provided some respite but as soon as they were back in the car his thoughts drifted off again even as Morgan was calling Hotch.

“Did you hear any of that pretty boy?” Morgan asked, pulling Spencer back to the present. Spencer shrugged, more because he didn’t want to admit he hadn’t been listening than a lack of care. “Our suspect just got into a shoot out with Hotch and Prentiss and the locals.”

“What! Are they okay?”

“They wounded the unsub but it’s not critical, everyone else is fine,” Morgan said, starting the car. “What’s up with you anyway man?”

“Nothing.” It came out more defensively than Spencer intended which only served to make Morgan more suspicious. To Spencer’s surprise though, Morgan spoke softly

“Listen I know things are hard-“

“Hard? Hard how? And what’s with the sudden interest. You and Garcia are the ones acting weird not me. The chess games and the gossipy phonically. If you’re trying o be funny then leave me out of it. I-“

The words were lost as Morgan slammed on the breaks and they jerked forward. The breath flew out of Spencer’s lungs as he was thrown back into his seat.

“You think Penelope is making fun of you?” Morgan snapped, eyes blazing. “You think she is spending all her time, all her effort on playing a prank on you?”

“You said she was making herself…something,” Spencer said, weakly. All the certainty he had was gone. Morgan pulled his phone out of his pocket and jabbed at it for a moment and then thrust it at Spencer.

“I’m worried she’s making herself stupid. For you.”

Spencer’s heart dropped as he took the phone and scrolled through the grainy scan of an article. Twelve year old Penelope Garcia had come first in a state chess championship, having beaten the standing recorded for the quickest game played during the competitions history. 

The shining trophy was almost as big as Penelope was and swathed in black lace and striking make up Spencer could she she was struggling to hide a smile. The pride was radiating off of her.

“She’s good,” Morgan said, his voiced strained as he started the car up again. “I mean really good. Before her parents died she was competing at high levels. Not just matches but she won an award for solving a chess problem and she showed me something had written once for a chess magazine. If she wanted to she could wipe the floor with you and I bet you would have destroyed Gideon. Not that he would have even thought to ask anyone other than you to play with him.”

Spencer stayed silent. He wanted to protest, to argue that whatever Penelope’s reasoning it was still a lie. She had lied to Spencer to get him to play with her. Then he thought back to her approach.

“Show me how you play.”

Not “teach me how to play” but “show me _how you_ play.” He has assumed of course and with a twist in his stomach Spencer realised that Penelope had probably intended for him to make that assumption.

“Why?” Spencer asked quietly.

“Check a calendar.”

Maybe it was a blessing that Morgan avoiding him during debriefing and the jet ride home. Spencer saw Hotch have a brief word with him but he never approached Spencer and then on the jet Morgan exchanged a few, tired words with Emily in a low voice before settling down with his headphones on. Then she had looked up at Spencer sympathetically, with a small smile that made his heart break and pulled out a book. 

Morgan’s anger would cool. It was only this way because he felt Penelope had been slighted and Morgan’s protective instinct overrode everything else. That didn’t do anything to ease Spencer’s raging feelings at that moment though.

The first thing he did back at Quantico was seek Penelope out. He meant to walk into the bat cave with his head held high and demand an explanation but when she turned around in her chair and fixed him with a concerned look that intention failed Spencer miserably.

“Why?” he asked instead with slumped shoulders. 

“Anniversaries are tough,” Penelope said after a moment, elaborating when Spencer looked confused. “The day I asked you was exactly a year after Gideon left. In the run up you’d been…quiet and distant and just, you know, sad. I thought getting you to play chess would be a good way to cheer you up and make you focus on a good part of your relationship but you never want to play with anyone else so I thought if you thought you were teaching me…”

It was a sound idea and Spencer could deny the black cloud that was hanging over him before he and Penelope had started playing together. Like so many other things that hurt him, Spencer had thought the best way to deal with it was push it to one side and ignore it if he couldn’t hope to understand it.

“Morgan’s mad at me. He thinks you were dumbing yourself down by asking me to teach you.”

“I didn’t technically ask you to teach me. I asked me to show me how you play. Really I was studying your technique which is what any skilled chess player does so…”

“I don’t think he’ll buy that.”

“He was just as worried about you as I was,” Penelope insisted. “I think though that Gideon provokes some really complicated feelings in the team. You were the only person he actually said goodbye too and that’s super hard for you. But it’s also super hard for the rest of us.”

“I think it was super hard for Gideon too,” she mused after a pause. “He carried a lot of trauma with him and I think he had a desperate need to care for people but also a need for distance from them. I think he wanted us to be a family, or at least he wanted us all to thrive but it’s a huge emotional burden to feel responsibility for that. In a way it’s a shame that we’re closer now that he’s gone because I think it could have helped him.”

Spencer pressed his lips together, turning Penelope’s words over and over. Gideon’s departure had been such a weight around his neck. No matter how much he struggled to bear it, to live with it he was always aware of its presence. He had grown stronger. Over the course of the year he had learned to live with it but the feeling was still there.

And Penelope had seen all of that, he realised with a twist in his chest. Spencer had been so sure that he had kept it all hidden and yet it had been obvious. More than that she’d tried to fix it in such a way that he didn’t know he was being fixed.

“You thought I would refuse your help if you offered it openly?”

“Well, duh.” Spencer couldn’t help but laugh at that and Penelope joined in.

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I know a little about giving up something you love because it reminds you of someone you lost,” said Penelope and Spencer tilted his head to the side in a silent question. “My Dad taught me to play. Well my step-Dad, Emilio. It was how we bonded. Whenever I was sad or had a bad day at school he would pull out a board and we would play a game and talk whatever the problem was out.”

The little smile on her face was so familiar it was heartbreaking. For all her openness, Penelope rarely talked about her past in general and Spencer was sure she had only talked about her parents once or twice. He knew from Morgan that they had died in a car accident but that was it.

“You stopped playing after…”

“After they died yeah. I was so hurt and angry and for the first time that board didn’t provide any comfort. It just reminded me what I lost.”

“But it must have been really hard to play with me then!” Spencer blurted out.

“It felt…right?” Penelope shrugged. “I knew it would help you so it felt okay.”

“And now?”

“Would it still help?” Penelope asked with a smile. 

The realisation that yes actually it would help, hit Spencer with such a ferocity that he thought he would burst into tears or manic laughter.

“Does this mean we can play properly?”

“No this means we play way more fun versions of chess now,” Penelope said with a glint in her eyes. “You’ve heard of fairy chess?”

“Chess with variations,” Spencer quoted with a frown. “Like different rules, boards or pieces. Aren’t they mostly for solving chess problems?”

“Yeah. I entered a couple of competitions as a teenager. They’re super fun. Ooh also I have a circular chess board at home and have you ever played Kriegspiel?”

“N-no?”

“It’s blind chess! We need three boards. We can see our own pieces but not each others and then we’d need someone to be a referee and check we could make the moves we want. It would be a good way to get back into Morgan’s good books?” She added with a grin.

“So you didn’t just play standard chess?”

“With my Dad if I needed to unwind but I like a challenge and I like taking something solid and dependable and upending it, turning it into something knew you know?”

It was fitting, Spencer thought as Penelope listed all the variations she enjoyed and the fun challenges her father used to set her. Penelope was nothing if not dependable and yet also full of wonder.

**Author's Note:**

> Caïssa is the goddess of chess first mentioned in a poem by Hieronymus Vida.
> 
> This story is an entry for the Criminal Minds Bingo challenge. It fulfils my "Chess Match" square.


End file.
